One founder's feelings on pitching a major VC, just minutes before...

Well, today is the day I pitch at my incubator’s showcase. An estimated 150-200 people will be there. I’m excited… nervous… I just want to be electric and perfect, move the room to tears with how great I am, slam dunk this thing, and not make a single mistake… IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK??

I am also writing this in the conference room next door to the other conference room filled with 10 investors from a prestigious angel group, trying to take my mind off of what I am about to do.

I obviously know the content inside and out. I have written all 113 versions of this pitch myself, practiced it about 300 times, and still plan to go off-script and improvise. I majored in Communications and took numerous public speaking courses in college, I know the reading glasses trick (won’t use it) and I know how to project and present. I have always done well at presenting, but there is something else about THIS. There is something else about pitching my baby to a bunch of smart, high profile investors and individuals who I know are going to judge my idea, my business model, everything I decided to put in the deck or leave out of the deck…

And Me… a young mom (who looks younger than I am-not always a good thing) who is here by herself (every other company has come in with an entourage) with a half-baked MVP, half-full (or half-empty) vendor network, no CTO, and a pink pitch deck that is focused on weddings and style.

I KNOW Event Hollow is the future of this industry. That confidence has to exude out of my energy and pitch today, and not out of the tears I want to cry instead.

Have you ever heard of the pit of despair all founders go through? AKA the proverbial trough of sorrow? Well let me tell you, it exists. A founder that was just sitting across from me brought up a good thought. “The pit of despair needs to be conveyed as the PITS of despair, and be visualized as a never-ending squiggly line that goes up and down throughout the journey”

Even through all of this good happening today, I am in one of those pits. This is SO HARD. So much harder than my other business (a small event planning and floral design business). And dare I say, in some ways, it’s harder than being a mom. IN SOME WAYS.

My kids are my life and I WANT to be with them. As a mom, it’s so hard to know what to do all the time. One weird comfort is that, if I screw up something with my kids, they will still love me. They will always love me. If I screw this company up, it doesn’t matter how much I love it, it will never love me or show me any grace, and all my hard work could be for nothing, and all the money everyone has risked and invested into it could disappear. That is SUCH a burden.

But this is the burden I choose because I believe it matters. Moving forward is the only option when you are fighting for what matters. I‘m good at that.

(raising my hand)